Category Archives: Arc 8.1: Bloodmaiden

She felt whole for the first time in hours, and tired enough that she could sleep—not that she really could. Even if she hadn’t been fighting aliens for the last three hours, leaving her dead tired, but at the same time too full of energy to sit, she was in an airplane hangar. There wasn’t any place to sit down but the concrete floor. Even if she’d wanted to try napping, she was sharing the hangar with nearly one hundred people, all of them veterans of the same fight.

She looked better than most, if only because her body physically changed, and instead of being in her armor, she was now in her clothes, the jeans and white, wool sweater she’d been wearing back when they all thought they were about to go home. Continue reading Bloodmaiden: Part 21→

Reliquary nodded. “Remarkably so. It’s a pity that the magical establishment is too stuck in their ways to appreciate the options that new approaches offer us. Am I right in guessing that you’re not from this universe?”

Ignoring how tired she felt, Amy walked toward the front door, spear in hand. The door stood open and she stopped just short of walking through, waiting off to the side. In the background of her mind, the voices murmured about different ways to strengthen herself. She didn’t have time for any of them.

Phil lay on the porch, neck at a strange angle, but beginning to push himself off the concrete. William Harcourt stood over him, seemingly unafraid, possibly unaware of how powerful these creatures could be.

The woman (Sheila Schettler) had been a waitress at a Waffle House restaurant. She’d left her second shift job one night and seen a child alone in the alley behind the restaurant. When she’d gotten close, he’d looked into her eyes, and she’d found herself unable to do anything but come closer.

He’d commanded her to bend over, and when she did, she’d seen his teeth—long, sharp canines that would have been the stuff of nightmares.

Amy said a few words that Harcourt had taught her. She couldn’t fault his knowledge or even his teaching. He knew magic, and he could explain it. That helped make up for the fact that he was the only master of blood magic she knew, and maybe a little bit for the fact that he was deliberately sabotaging her progress.

Magical energies became visible before her eyes, a slight reddish tinge where there wasn’t much power behind it, brighter red where the magic was stronger.

After a period of time, she walked back into the house, going straight to the kitchen where she heated water in the microwave and dipped a tea bag into it.

She’d heard of tea bags back home, but not good things.

Sipping the tea, she didn’t think it was so bad, and they certainly had more flavors here. It was strange, though, to make her own tea, but they didn’t have servants. So far as she could tell, no one had servants. The cleaning woman, the men who cared for the lawn, and the security guards were all employees.

That wasn’t the end of the odd little differences about this place–their need to combine rooms for example. This house combined the dining room, kitchen and room for entertaining guests into one big room. They had many other rooms besides, most with no obvious purpose.

Moments later, three more people came through the door. The first two were teenagers—a boy and a girl, holding hands.The boy wore a sporty blue jacket made of wyvern leather in a style that had been popular at Court last year. He was short—only a little taller than the girl who came in with him—and his brown hair went down to his shoulders, a style that was still popular.

His eyes darted from one spot to another in the room, and he grinned as he took it all in.

A low murmuring came from the voices in her head when she saw the girl. Blonde, blue eyed and pale skinned, the girl wore a brown leather coat and pants—the kind Amy had seen in illustrations of colonists and frontiersmen. From her clothes alone, it was obvious to Amy that this person didn’t care about fashion at all, but that was the least of it.

Amy gave a small smile. “I’ll see you and your grandfather both then. Maybe I’ll send your greetings.”

Nick grinned. “Yeah, that would be neat. ‘Another you told me to say hello?’ I’d want to know how much he was like me, and how. Of course, whoever that Nick is, he wouldn’t be me. It’s anyone’s guess what he’d think.”